Secularism and the Church: A Case Study on the Church in Romania

Today's society is an increasingly secular society. Secularisation implies the eradication of the religious dimension at both individual and social levels. Secularism, however, does not remain an abstract philosophical concept, but one which permeates the entire society. Society is not a morally abstract entity, therefore the conflict between secularism and the Church is inevitable. In this paper we will examine not only how this trend is seen in relation to the Christian Church in general, but also how this relationship takes place in the context of the Christian Church in Romania. Although most of the Romanian society is Orthodox, alongside other Christian churches recognized by the state from (at least nominally) a Christian society. The Romanian Christian Church covers almost the entire Romanian society (the percentage of people outside the Christian sphere is less than 1% of the country’s population). In this context, the present research will focus primarily on how, historically speaking, secularization has generally occurred in Western society but also in Romanian society. Secularism is creeping subtly, gradually, and aggressively into Romanian society. Given that secularism is in essence about the removal of God from society and the dissolution of morality, secularism is implicitly one of the greatest challenges of the last three decades for the Romanian Church. In this context it should be stressed that the Christian Church in Romania has often lost ground in this war. Since the Church is the entity meant to provide the moral fibre of society, the war with secularism must be taken into consideration

Functional Illiteracy: An Epistemic Quest in Modern and Biblical Times

Functional illiteracy has become in the last decades the technical term used to describe a reality in which a literate person fails to grasp the meaning of a text or to perform a basic analysis necessary for an effective personal and social development. Recent studies on this phenomenon are alarming since a significant percentage of Europeans although they consider themselves educated, do not know that they do not know. The main issue beyond the concept of functional illiteracy is the concept of knowing. Therefore, this study focuses on various aspects originating from epistemology to highlight that the dialogue between science and theology can be used to address this issue. This paper advocates that although the terminology per se used by scholars in the last four decades is not found in the Bible, the reality of such phenomena is to be found both in the Old and the New Testament. Biblical epistemology reflects a reality that transcends a naturalistic epistemology. Therefore, it is important to note that while functional illiteracy has a cognitive motivation, in the Bible spiritual functional illiteracy has a spiritual cause. Often scholars suggest the fact that scientific epistemology and biblical epistemology are inconsistent. However, focusing on the issue of functional illiteracy now and in the past, in our study of the nature of knowledge, it is reasonable to admit that a dialogue between epistemology and theology is crucial